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Old 20 May 15, 03:34 PM  
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#31
oh_darling
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Originally Posted by Pussycat Doll View Post
Fantastic pre trip Libby, we are soooo looking forward to actually being there for Christmas rather than arriving on Christmas Day! Maybe we could meet at DTD for a beer or 3! Pussycat x
Aww that would be lovely! Definitely! You normally arrive on Christmas Day then do you? What a treat to be there the whole time! What are your plans for Christmas Day? I feel like I've asked you that before haha! So exciting xxxx

Originally Posted by louvb View Post
We will see you there! We are at the Clarion 18th till 1st after staying there last year and loving it! Shuttles are good tho the q's can be big We missed Millers tho last year and are definately trying it this year
Ahhh maybe a mini Dibb meet is needed! glad the shuttles are good and thanks for the tip, we'll be prepared for the queues in that case! Maybe see you at Christmas! xxxx
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Old 20 May 15, 03:37 PM  
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[QUOTE=oh_darling;10663463]Aww that would be lovely! Definitely! You normally arrive on Christmas Day then do you? What a treat to be there the whole time! What are your plans for Christmas Day? I feel like I've asked you that before haha! So exciting :

We actually haven't decided yet to be honest, not sure whether to try and book a meal somewhere, it would be offsite as we don't do any parks till the cheap residents passes come out in Jan! Or hubby suggested we cook at the villa! Not sure I like that idea too much! Pussycat
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Old 20 May 15, 03:38 PM  
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The 2015 Flight Saga

So the flights actually happened before the Acommodation. I started flight-checking obsessively in late December, knowing the flights for our dates would be released at the end of Janaury. At this point, we didn’t really know what our dates were. Well, I mean we knew our trip would take place between Sat 19th December and Sat 2nd January, because those are the school holiday dates and the only time off Benj is allowed. There were many, many times I asked him if we could go the Friday if it was loads cheaper, but this was always a no, (understandably haha!) - just be quiet Libby.

So these were our dates. They were also the optimum, or ‘Dream’ dates.’ If we managed to find flights going Sat-Sat that weren’t extortionate, we’d be over the moon, as then we’d get the full 14 nights in Florida. DREAM! However, I didn’t think this was going to be possible as Saturdays are always more expensive I’d also read lots of threads where people said it was cheaper to fly out Christmas Day (!) or fly back NYE. We’d obviously consider this, and in fact we were bracing ourselves to have to do this, but it wouldn’t have been ideal. We’re greedy people, and the thought of spending BOTH Christmas Day and New Years Eve was so awesome! Missing one would have been a major bummer Plus that’s a long way to fly for only 9/10 days…and we didn’t think we’d be going at Christmas again for a long time, if ever, so we were keen to have our cake and eat it too!

We were also pretty willing to fly indirect. I know it isn’t ideal and we haven’t done it before, but I flew to Bali with work and changed in Singapore and it was like, totally fine. I was pretty confident we’d be okay. Yes it would be a long day, but if the savings were right, we’d do it!

So as January drew to an end I was like a madwoman on Kayak, SkyScanner, Norwegian…you name the flight website, I was refreshing the page, whilst simultaneously refreshing my email in case my daily alert popped up. Some flights were already out and they were like £1000 each. Eek! When the magic 11 month window graced us with it’s presence, it was a bit of an anti-climax. Virgin and BA were both in the £900 area for most dates between the 19th-2nd. Thomas Cook doesn’t fly in December (thanks guys.)

Indirect it was then! Indirect was showing as low as £680ish I think, which was okay. Not ideal though, and I immediately had to rethink The Budget. I’d randomly assigned £1000 to our flight budget…on reflection, slightly optimistically! I was thinking it needed to be more like £1200 Not a disaster, but obviously taking more money out of our overall budget.

So I started researching Indirect and the best routes to take. Unfortunately for us, routes via Chicago were coming in at the cheapest, which is also a super snowy place to land in December! After removing Chicago as an option, the price jumped up to over £700 each Indirect! Nightmare!

I then did loads of different calculations with varying routes i.e going from Birmingham, boomeranging to Ireland, Manchester etc. Whilst the initial flight price was lower, by the time I’d added on a train or driving to the airport, staying overnight etc, the price was the same as if not more than flying from London. Grrr!

I started to feel slightly defeated and wondered if we’d actually ever be able to get affordable flights The new plan was to wait for Norwegian flights to come out, and just hope they’d be around the £600 mark. We were happy to fly with Norwegian and it seemed like the best option. However, there was always the chance the flights would be crazy expensive! Which I was trying not to think about! So we sat tight for a few days and I watched lots of threads about when Norwegian would release their flight prices for late 2016. I also asked on their FB page and was told May/June which seemed incredibly late! I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to hold my nerve until then! Each day the indirect flight prices were rising, only a little bit each day, but it was all adding up!

Then one day during my usual sweep of flight websites, I saw flights for £650 each, DIRECT. Direct! Whaaatttt! And they were the ‘Dream’ dates – 19th – 2nd! They were US Airways flights and I recognised the flight times as British Airways!



I was shaking, I couldn’t believe it! After a quick call to Ben who told me to go for it, I booked them direct with US Airways for extra peace of mind (although I’m sure it’s fine to book with flightstore etc) for £666 each (spooky!) I really wasn’t believing we’d get them, I thought it was a glitch. 24 hours later I hadn’t received the confirmation email I had received one straightaway after booking, saying I’d get the actual email in 24 hours. I checked my credit card online and the money hadn’t come out

I couldn't log in to US Airways with the code they’d given me so I Googled the email address and got loads of hits saying it was a scam email! And I thought it looked a bit dodgy when I looked closer! So I thought I’d been had by some crazy scam arghhh!

I then tried to log in to US airways again and it let me (phew), but when I looked at the booking it said it had been CANCELLED! Nightmare! I rang them to try and see what was going on and basically babbled down the phone to the poor woman

She made me feel SO much better though by saying she could see my booking but wasn’t sure what had happened. She put me on hold and spoke to her supervisor and when she came back, she said it was a problem on BA’s side and we were now rebooked on exactly the same flights, but they were now AA flights. I didn’t really understand this but I went with it anyway! She said she’d email me the reservation in 5-10 minutes…but it never came! I took matters into my own hands, logged back into US Airways and I could see my reservation, and it had come off my credit card! I think the confusion was because AA and US merged that week, or something.

No idea what the scam email was about, it wasn’t a scam because obviously I did book the flights, but I think US Airways just aren't so hot with their flight booking confirmation emails (it has typos and bad grammar…) and I think the email address is very similar to the scam email addresses that was used by hackers a couple of years back. Weird, but whatever.

Sooooo our flights are booked! £666 each direct with British Airways, flying Saturday 19th and returning Saturday 2nd January I’ve logged into BA and chosen our seats as we could do it for free as it’s a codeshare, and we’re sitting near the front, by a window Didn’t really know what else to go for haha, unless you have legroom seats I think they’re all pretty similar!

We’re chuffed to be going for the full 2 weeks, and we’re extra chuffed to be flying BA We get into Orlando at like 5pm rather than the 11pm we thought we would, if we flew indirect. Our countdown was at 299 when we booked the flights, and now we’re at 212 Yay!
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Old 20 May 15, 04:17 PM  
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What a drama!

Amazing flights in the end though!
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Old 20 May 15, 04:33 PM  
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Omg the panic , glad you got it sorted those flight prices are brilliant!
Very exciting seeing this trippee up I had confusion for a sec . I was like OMG there wedding is this dec then I was like no this is the pre wedding cheeky trippee
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Old 20 May 15, 05:24 PM  
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Ohh another triply. How exciting

I absolutely love a bargain and doing trips on a budget so I really cannot wait for this
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Old 20 May 15, 05:48 PM  
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Love reading your pre-trip/trip reports! Can't wait to read more about this trip... We get married June 2016, not in Disney though unfortunately!
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Old 20 May 15, 06:04 PM  
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Brilliant to see this, I loved your previous two trip reports! I think the Clarion Inn is a short walk from Ci Ci's Pizza... That place is heaven on earth!
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Old 20 May 15, 06:23 PM  
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How exciting - 2 trips! My daughter has decided she wants to get married at WDW already (she's 12! ), You're going to have an amazing time, can't wait to read all about it!
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Old 20 May 15, 06:36 PM  
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Yay a Libby pretrippie! My favourite kind
Can't wait to hear more about your plans!
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